


locking horns, locking lips

by 13pens



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Happy Ending, Humor, Open Relationships, Post-Canon, the mortifying ordeal of writing smut, there is a Plot and the Plot is: they're stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:46:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13pens/pseuds/13pens
Summary: “Do you enjoy Kendry?”Dutch reddens. “What?”Aneela looks across at her with a coyness. “Would you like to enjoy her?”“Are. Are you…” Dutch laughs nervously, roughly. “Asking me if I want tosleep with your wife?”Dutch Takes Notes, the fic.
Relationships: Dutch | Yalena Yardeen/Delle Seyah Kendry
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	locking horns, locking lips

**Author's Note:**

> hello i am here again and needed this out of my system before my life got busy again but anyways lmao.......... happy birthday to my fucking self.
> 
> title is a reference to HJK's [interview](http://www.tvgoodness.com/2018/08/31/hannah-john-kamen-talks-dual-roles-and-love-stories-in-killjoys-exclusive/) in which she refers to Dutch and Delle Seyah as "two strong women locking horns."
> 
> **Content Warnings (none of these happen in a sexual context): physical / gun violence, near death experience by poisoning**

Kendry cries when she comes.

The first time it happens, Dutch just about freezes, mid-flex. She's knuckle deep, Kendry still shaking a little, tears leaving neat little tracks. "What are you...doing?"

She snarls, jaw twitching. Damp baby hairs have stuck to her temples.

"What, you've never pleasure-cried before?" Kendry wipes at her face with a dignified finger, no dramatics. "Grow up."

*

All that begins with a warrant.

The job itself is a little more high profile than usual, being Dutch’s first Level 4 in a while. The target is some big name on Qresh—Brodias Something—a diplomat who had the misfortune of being an easy scapegoat when the Nine had committed whatever borderline-war crime a decade or so ago. Escaped a Company jailer ship and made a beeline for the next cluster, and so it goes. They’ll pay more for his live return to serve the rest of his expensive sentence, but the guaranteed silence of his death is no issue, either.

To her displeasure, the nature of the warrant means that because of Annoying Political Reasons, Dutch _must_ bring along a certain Annoying Political Ruler, who is too thrilled to be at her side as an asset. But all of this aside, it is seemingly an ordinary job. Simple in theory, too, with Brodias neglecting entirely to hide his trail when he stole a jailer transport pod.

When they headed back to the Quad, they were supposed to have him on their ship, alive and willing, after Kendry had used her snake antics to convince him to take the less painful surrender.

Now, as they are headed to the Quad, they do not have Brodias on their ship, he is dead, after Kendry stuck the end of his rifle through his stomach when he tried to shoot it at her.

“Did you really have to go and _do that_ ,” Dutch grumbles, hands gripping the pilot wheel. Delle Seyah is seated beside her, checking for dirt under her nails.

“He was unhinged,” Kendry replies defensively. “You should be thanking me that no one has to extract bullets out of your thick skull.”

“If not for Aneela, perhaps I’d be putting some in yours.”

“Oh, don’t threaten me with a good time.”

Dutch clicks her teeth, getting a little too passionate as she goes. “Of all the things to bungle, too. How do you accidentally expose a planet-wide housing scam, secure an extra alliance for Qresh, and then fuck up the mission you’re _actually on_ in the same breath?”

“Easy there, Yala.” Kendry reaches for steering handle to steady it when Dutch lets go in the midst of her little tirade, ship tilting momentarily.

Dutch brings her hands back on the controls as the dip passes. Kendry’s fingers linger over hers; she swats it away, which does nothing to affect Kendry’s self-satisfied demeanor.

“See? Saved you a second time.”

“You’re the worst temp ever,” says Dutch.

“Yeah, go write that in a Yelp review.”

They hit air traffic as they get closer to the Quad, which annoy Dutch and Kendry both for separate reasons—Dutch has to deal with more time with Kendry, and Kendry must cope with Dutch having less fun than she is. Even the Jaqobis had a better time with her.

Dutch implements a lukewarm solution, flicking on autopilot and leaving Kendry alone in the cockpit to go punch some stuff in the training room.

She swaps her leather jacket and pants for elastic shorts and sports bra, rolling her eyes when she finds herself recreating in her mind Delle Seyah’s appreciative once-over that she would definitely give were she in the room. That kind of stuff probably drives Aneela crazy for her, which Dutch just doesn’t understand, not completely. Flattering, sure. Head-over-heels material? Not so much.

Not that this opinion of hers ever stops Kendry from trying to woo her. They’re not enemies anymore, but they’re not friends. Delle Seyah is still all the things that irked Dutch before Aneela came into the picture and rearranged Kendry’s atomic structure with her mouth: arrogant, presumptuous, entirely without scruples, and while granting Westerley long-due but minimum standard care, still a snobby dictator. Meanwhile, Kendry regards with pity the way Dutch wears her ruggedness as if she’s above it all, even as she not-so-subtly expresses that Dutch should be above something else in another respect.

But they merely tolerate each other. Or, no. A more accurate description would be that Dutch tolerates Kendry’s Regina George buffoonery, and Kendry tolerates getting rejected, content with the knowledge that at the end of the day she will fall into bed at night with the love of her immortal life, regardless of whether she gets Yala Yardeen’s attention. And because of that, nearly every interaction ends with Dutch leaving the room in an indignant huff to find Aneela, or just leave for the day, if Aneela had already been there. Occasionally, Kendry will go too far and pick a scab, and won’t call her PDD to apologize unless Aneela asks her to. Any warmth she has for her wife is never extended to Dutch, who literally has the same face. She can’t be tricked into phantom affection. The compartmentalization game in that bitch is just very strong.

Gods. Too much of Dutch’s brainspace is being used for this. Kendry would love to know.

As if summoned, Kendry strolls into the room. She watches Dutch’s lips curl in preparation for some insult, and watches it die there as Kendry beats her to the punch.

“Spidey senses. Your thoughts are very loud.”

Dutch socks the punching bag with a little more gusto. “Yeah, was thinking about how much more fun I’d have swinging at you.”

Kendry shrugs, and removes her cape jacket, hanging it on the wall. “Okay.”

The bag swings forward at Dutch, who has stopped jabbing at it. “What?”

“Fight me, then,” says Kendry, one hand bunching up her dress over her knees and the other tightened to a fist.

“Are you that desperate for my attention?” Dutch scoffs, incredulous.

“What, are you afraid of getting your ass handed to you by some… what did you call me in front of Brodias? A spoiled blue-blood with noodles for arms?”

There’s not a trace of her Qresh brand malice in the way her smile bares teeth. A girl just wants to have fun, and for once, Dutch thinks they may be on the same page. She laughs, and then she throws a fist in Kendry’s direction.

Kendry dodges, her movements fluid and with ease, but she realizes very quickly that Dutch’s judgment about her arms does have credence. Dutch’s jabs, crosses, and hooks are a fun challenge to block one-handed, but soon it becomes necessary to use both. Not that she minds losing to her. She savors the thrill-flavored anger that rises in her gut when Dutch locks her arm and throws her over her shoulder. Especially when her momentary triumph is interrupted by a nice heeled kick in the abdomen.

Dutch enjoys herself, too, she finds. Kendry continues to goad her, and it weighs less on her conscience that she’s duking it out with someone precious to Aneela and thus by syllogism shouldn’t be throttled. Eventually she does pop Kendry right on the mouth, cutting her lip and drawing some blood from her tongue. She takes that moment of shock to pin her down to the floor, straddling Kendry’s torso. She looks up at her with a snarl, breathing heavy. Dutch huffs a smirk, the adrenaline coursing through her.

She’s about to let out a self-congratulatory _Nice try, Seyah_ , but instead watches her lip, how it stitches back together to pristine pink skin. Kendry tracks her eyes, how they narrow and dilate at the sight of her mouth healing. They breathe heavily. Dutch processes the strained movement of Kendry’s diaphragm underneath her. She can smell her stupid perfume. Kendry smells only sweat.

It’s sturdy math, if you think about it. A surefire chemical reaction. But Kendry hardly sees it coming when Dutch slides and bends down to kiss her, make her lips bleed again with her teeth. When she stops seeing stars, she kisses and bites back greedily.

Kendry is a sloppy kisser, Dutch notes, but she’s not half bad. In fact, she’s very absorbing, and she can feel herself forgive the whole Brodias stunt as Kendry unabashedly groans into her mouth and runs her fingers through Dutch’s hair. She makes Kendry see stars again when she shifts her hips, just a little further in between her legs. She sees the appeal, now that she’s here. Never mind the time they both for sure wanted to do this in Lucy’s cargo hold after the whole Prestige School debacle. Sturdy math, surefire reactions.

The only thing outside the system of equations is the way Kendry’s neurons finally fire their way out of her cotton-brained arousal after a while, how she pushes Dutch off onto her back, strong fingers against her sternum, and says: “I love the eagerness, Yala. But I don’t actually think you can handle me.”

She kisses Dutch’s cheek with swollen lips before rising up to stand, putting on her coat and walking away as if none of it ever happened, even as her hair is half out of her intricate updo.

Getting blue-balled. By _Delle Seyah Kendry._ It’s not a badge Dutch is very proud of earning, but one Kendry is thrilled to award her, she’s sure.

Dutch drops her head to the floor with a thud. “What?”

*

But if you looked at it another way, the Kendry-Yardeen affair actually begins with none other than Aneela.

“I snogged your wife,” Dutch blurts out to her over their tea. Once the horny stupidity of it all had faded, it had occurred to her that she macked on her mom-sister’s _wife_.

But Aneela doesn’t so much as flinch. Doesn’t even know why it has to be an announcement.

“Yes, I know,” she says, a delicate and amused smile on her face. “Kendry told me.”

Dutch blinks. “You’re not upset?”

“I know she enjoys you. It’s quite flattering to me, if I’m honest.”

“I—” The cortices in Dutch’s head sprain; Aneela is merely patient. “Okay. Cool. I mean, cause you know how she is.”

“Mhm.”

“Yep…”

“Do you enjoy Kendry?”

Dutch reddens. “What?”

Aneela looks across at her with a coyness. She’s just like Kendry. She has too much fun with this shit. “Would you like to enjoy her?”

“Are. Are you…” Dutch laughs nervously, roughly. “Asking me if I want to _sleep with your wife_?”

Her brows furrow, though the smile is still there. “Yes? Is that weird?”

“ _Yes.”_

 _“_ Ah. Okay. Still. Would you?”

Dutch’s eyes widen. Kissing Kendry was _really good_. She suddenly understands why Delle Seyah loves to think with her p— “I mean… _yes_? But—”

Aneela ignores the quality of her near-squeaking voice. She pulls out her PDD. Dutch thinks maybe she’ll shift to another subject, and takes a sip of her tea.

“Okay. Are you busy in… five days time? Clear your evening. Better yet, clear your schedule.”

Dutch spittakes.

Again, Aneela remains patient. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be there. That’s a touch weird, even I know that.”

Dutch nervous-laugh-screams into a napkin as she dabs her chin dry. “ _Aneela._ ”

*

The Qoogle invite reads only as “Kendry-Yardeen Business Meeting 1”.

 _One_ , Dutch repeats in her mind. _Presumptuous._

They’re quick to set some ground rules.

Rule one: No comparisons to Aneela. Dutch tells Kendry that if she makes another broken-record comment about how much she looks like her, or if she accidentally calls her the wrong name, if she even _looks_ at her like she’s Aneela, Dutch will end her on the spot. Kendry says that’s not even her kink, anyway.

Rule two: No overnights. Those are reserved for her wife and her wife alone, and Dutch gladly informs her that she’d rather take a shot of green than ask her to _spoon._

Rule three: What happens in their “business meetings” stays in their “business meetings.” Aneela is exempt. She might want to swap notes. (“She might _what_.”)

And so, this is how Dutch finds herself in a sleazy hotel in some corner of the J, three fingers inside Delle Seyah Kendry, who apparently, _pleasure cries_.

“Besides,” Kendry rasps, voice hitching a bit when Dutch resumes the movement of her fingers. She gives her a smile. “You should be flattered. That was good.”

Dutch raises an eyebrow, hits a spot that catches one of Kendry’s aftershocks, making her hip buck slightly, drawing out a sigh. Dutch’s borderline hateful-horny look that Kendry finds intoxicating returns.

“Just good?”

“Well, you’re a quick study, but I know an unseasoned lady-lover when I see one. Or feel one, as it were.”

“ _Unseasoned_? Fuck you.” A final curl of her fingers is all the additional payback Dutch delivers, and Kendry’s having to dab her eyes again with the base of her hand. She can’t even pretend that all her dreams aren’t coming true right now, which makes Dutch smirk with triumph.

“Mission accomplished,” Kendry breathes, and Dutch rolls her eyes, removes her hand and bunches up the bedsheets below them to reduce the wet to a mere residue.

Kendry can feel the slick between Dutch’s thighs on her knee where she’s been straddling her, and draws out a breath from Dutch when she shifts it upward to press into her. Dutch makes a sound that is all levels of delicious; she makes a motion to take care of it herself, but Kendry catches her wrist and languidly flips Dutch onto her back.

She honors their first rule well. Kendry’s eyes take in Dutch like she’s never seen her before in her life, from her hairline to the red tracks on her chest made by too-eager nails, to her navel. The bitemarks on her shoulders, the ones she promises she’ll wand away when they’re done. Kendry watches her pupils dilate, listens to Dutch’s breath go shallow.

“You should have your hair down more often,” Dutch comments, breaking the charged silence. Kendry smirks, hearing it for what it is—Yala wants her to work, but she’d never ask nor command. Dutch is too busy processing how much she likes the sight of Kendry naked and above her to notice, too.

She flips her hair to one shoulder, biting her lip before bending down to give Dutch an open-mouthed kiss. Laughs when Dutch’s hands try to direct her hip to the side to press against her more firmly, but can’t get the stubborn Seyah to budge. Hullen strength. Great for teasing.

It doesn’t stop Dutch from tensing, squirming. Even with Kendry over her, she’s still trying to be in charge as if something terrible will happen if she isn’t.

Kendry pulls back, loosens the hold of her thighs. “Yellow? Red?”

“No,” Dutch says quickly. “You’re good. Green. Just…”

“These words were your idea, you know. Use them.”

“I know. You’re just taking your sweet time.”

“We have all day,” Kendry reminds, returning down to whisper in her ear. “Or did you double-book?”

Whatever retort she has gets swallowed up in another kiss, deeper and urgent, with a little more teeth. Dutch relents and puts her hands over shoulder blades instead, but her muscles are still coiled and taut in her neck, abdomen, her thighs. Poor baby, Kendry thinks. Seems she was never satisfactorily taken care of in the evidently few times Dutch has been with other women.

Dutch watches Kendry in sharp focus as she trails kisses down her chest, taking a breast into her mouth and caressing the nipple with her tongue, light touches of her teeth compounding on the goosebumps left by the brush of her hair against the sides of her torso. Dutch does well to remind her to leave no hickeys, wands don’t really take care of those as well, and Kendry’s calm obedience unexpectedly leaves Dutch completely _wanting_.

“Shit,” Dutch grunts as Kendry makes her way downward and nips on the skin of her inner thighs, hands firmly holding them open, thumbing over her muscles as if to will them to relax. Her hot breath over her draws out a deep exhale from Dutch.

Then Kendry sits back upward on her knees, and Dutch frowns.

“Oh don’t pout,” Kendry says as she ties up her hair into a loose bun behind her head. “Give me a pillow.”

Dutch considers throwing it at her, but she does want this head more than anything right now. So.

She hands her the unused pillow by her side, which Kendry tucks carefully under Dutch’s bottom, widening access. Leaning in, Kendry runs her nails outward along Dutch’s inner thigh to behind her knees, eyes locked on hers. She gives her a smug teeth-baring smile.

“Dear Yala,” she croons. “Dare I say how beautiful you look on your back like this.”

“Thanks. I can think of a better angle for you, though.”

Eyebrows go up, impressed. “I agree.”

She rolls her eyes, but Dutch’s reddening face is partially embarrassment for the way she’s already dripping onto the pillow below her, how she’s _been_ stupidly wet since she had Kendry writhing and panting under her, pink in the face, neck and chest. But Kendry marvels at how she glistens, tongue brushing flat over Dutch’s folds and stopping just a micron under her swollen clit.

Kendry’s attentive. Dutch adds this knowledge to what is now an accumulating Kendry-In-Bed folder. The Hullen senses make it easier for her to listen to how she’s breathing, tracking every hitch and the accompanying movements, a low hum and slight twisting of her hips being Bad, and quickening breaths with the curling of her fingers, which are now interlocked with Kendry’s under her open thighs, being Good. After some keen observations and a few out loud directions from Dutch, Kendry has found her pattern and pace. Her own face grows pink in excitement of pleasing Yala so, and the sight of it makes Dutch a little dizzy.

Not as dizzy as she gets when her body responds enthusiastically to Kendry’s mouth. Dutch’s hips begin to shake and buck, and the _Fuck_ _Shit Oh Kendrys_ start to leave her with higher frequency, earning a low laugh that vibrates against her and in turn rips out a little whine. Dutch will be mortified later, Kendry will have saved the sound in her mental repertoire.

The bucking and the breathing and the horny-brained grumblings reach a peak as Kendry holds her in place and sucks, lapping her tongue in quick and strong movements, not stopping even when Dutch has let go of her hands to put them through her hair, simultaneously trying to push her back and pull her in. Dutch whines completely outside of her own accord, and perhaps she may understand why Kendry cries when she comes, too.

Kendry smiles, pushes behind Dutch’s knees in a near Happy Baby pose, does a few more gentle rounds to catch the aftershocks before leaving soft kisses on her folds and inner thighs.

She sits up, allowing Dutch’s legs to collapse down, and wipes her chin and the sides of her mouth with her wrist. Dutch is panting with her forearm over her eyes. Only when Dutch peeks an eye out does Kendry run her tongue over her lower lip, donning a cocky grin as she does so.

“Any feedback?” Kendry asks casually, and Dutch exhales with a shake of her head.

“Five stars,” she replies.

She watches Kendry crawl back up to give her a kiss on the jaw. “Yelp is for the restaurants, Yala, not the customers.”

When she pulls back, her eyes are crinkled and hooded, smiling almost sweetly. Almost… _youthful_. Like Dutch has never seen, or, well—had the opportunity to see, until now.

Her brow furrows. A tick of confusion appears on Kendry’s still smiling face.

“What the fuck,” Dutch says. Her voice rises: “You’re _cute_?!”

*

They still have a few hours left. Could call it early, if they wanted to, but that specific condition isn’t met. Dutch takes the shower first, quick and extra cold, whereas Kendry takes a whole forty minutes and makes a sauna of the room when she opens the bathroom door, hair down and blow dried and in a white robe matching Dutch’s.

“Gods, you took forever. What were you even doing?” Kendry grins and Dutch sighs, regretting the question. “Of course.”

“Learn to tire me out next time, then.” She drops onto the arm chair across the room with a contented hum. Dutch raises one eyebrow at her from where she sits up against the headboard.

“Not an easy task when you’re the Energizer Bunny’s poster child.” A beat. “Next time?”

Delle Seyah shrugs, smiling faintly but no longer eyeing her suggestively, a switch turned off with an ease like they really were just in a meeting of a non-sexual nature.

“If you’d like.”

“Not a one-and-done to you, am I?” Dutch quips. Something she elects to ignore quietly settles in her bones.

“No,” Kendry answers easily, switch still off.

Dutch considers.

*

“How did it go?” really has to be Aneela’s first question the moment Dutch takes a seat across from her. She had spent the whole day of their little appointment with Jaq, and when she wasn’t preoccupied with learning the mechanics of his video games, helping him study for Kendry’s upcoming math quiz, and sitting through hours of his curated joy jocs, she had wondered.

Dutch nearly has a conniption, mind flashing back to Kendry’s orgasm-tears and her face between her legs.

“Good,” she says, wide eyed and throat clenched, reaching for her cup of tea. “Nice.” She clears her throat, looking Aneela in the face. “Were you okay yesterday? Really, if any of this bothers you, say so. We’re too old for girl drama. You especially.”

Aneela smiles at her fondly, proudly. “I will say so, yes. But we’re fine, Yala. One day once in a while doesn’t interfere with our every night.”

“ _Every_ night? Even last night?”

Aneela raises her eyebrows up for half a second behind her cup in confirmation.

Dutch sighs. That godsdamned Hullen juice.

“You know, she quite likes it when I—”

“Ah—ah I think not,” Dutch covers her ears. “Besides we have a rule, remember?”

“I see,” Aneela sighs. “Very well.”

They drink in silence. The silence leaves room for the imprint of Kendry’s breathy groans in Dutch’s ear to manifest again.

Then Dutch sighs, long-suffering, pulling out her PDD and opening her notes app. She’ll need to remind herself to double encrypt.

“Fine. I’m listening.”

Aneela laughs, and leans in conspiratorially. If any servants overhear their conversation, they absolutely do not show it.

*

Kendry remains relatively chill, if such a word were ever in her self-descriptive lexicon; to both of their surprise it’s Dutch who is unable to deal with the sudden surge of _wanting_. Delle Seyah still cannot be tricked into phantom affection, despite a normal strand of it blooming there already. She can still compartmentalize with no major hit to her constitution. They don’t kiss or touch beyond their baseline flirtations, not outside their arranged business day, and she still pesters Dutch at every opportunity, though now at least fifty percent more laden with something that they’ll fuck out later in the week. She is fine.

But Dutch. Dutch left that night considering, and now keeps considering and re-considering. D’av, who knows every detail save for the sexual and conversational minutia of their meetings, tries not to feel inadequate when Dutch shyly turns her face away and asks him if he could—you know—do it the way Kendry does it.

 _What_.

There’s an element of competition in it, too, which both Dutch and Delle Seyah find irresistible, especially as it pertains to the other. For their third meeting on some other off-planet hotel, Dutch’s implemented insider knowledge results in a record of making Kendry cry nine times, though at the detriment of her own jaw, as well as her wrist for which she will definitely need a brace.

Her effort touches Kendry. Pleased and grateful, her gift involves pulling out a briefcase of dildos—(“Holy shit”) and allowing Dutch to select one she’d enjoy the most. The one she picks, Kendry then fastens to a strap, earning a look of dark-eyed surprise. (“Green?” “Green. Green green green.”)

By the time she is done with her, Dutch is all at once elated and indignant.

“You _asshole_ ,” Dutch rasps, breathing heavy, aching. “Now I’m going to leave with a wrist brace _and_ unable to walk right.”

Kendry merely winks. Her winner status will be challenged next meeting when she spends a round soaking the pillow she shoves into her face as Dutch takes a turn using the strap. It’s not something she usually does with Aneela (fact unmentioned, of course), so they both learn on their own that Kendry _really_ likes to be dicked face down or in any other configuration from behind.

She can’t help but to love that Dutch works so hard. She takes her to a fancy dinner afterwards before she dies of depleted calories.

*

It settles into a rhythm.

There’s always a stupid Qoogle invite, which gets shifted around whenever something must take precedence over their leisure-pleasure—an important warrant, a strategic Qresh function, anything that concerns Jaq, or Aneela, or the Jaqobis in Dutch’s case (“No, Delle Seyah, I am not missing Johnny’s birthday to have sex with his girlfriend’s murderer.” “You people will never let that go, will you.”)

Dutch either waits on her ship at the Kendry docks, enters the estate to greet Aneela and Jaq, or Kendry swoops her up from the RAC cruiser to head to whatever new high-end destination she’s chosen. There’s almost always a bar, and so they often start off with a few drinks and flirty chatter before heading up to their room. They do their thing. They learn new things.

Then they talk, often over a too-expensive room service meal. Kendry could listen to Dutch talk for hours, she finds, whereas Dutch never thought she’d ever tolerate hearing Delle Seyah’s voice for this much this long. Sometimes a craving for another kind of sound gets a hold of them, and they go again.

When Dutch gets over the embarrassment of it all, she and Aneela do swap notes, regularly. Kendry is one lucky bitch, they agree. She simply just gets everything she wants.

Some things change. Dutch notices that Kendry has started to look at her differently—not a complete shift, but as if she’s turned up the volume, just a little louder. The volume of what, she’s unsure, but it’s something along the lines of tender that Dutch has found herself yearning for in between escapades.

It brings her to shift what was becoming customary: to come apart immediately, freshen up and sit on separate furniture to converse. It was never Kendry’s _plan_ for that to break, per se, but she doesn’t complain when she rises and Dutch takes her wrist, gives her a gentle tug. Lay with me a while, she says, asks. And what is Kendry going to say. No? Please.

“And I thought was clingy.” Kendry smirks, resettling under the covers and propping her head up to look down at Dutch. She keeps a few inches distance, but Kendry basks in the warmth her body radiates beside her.

Dutch wonders aloud what they’d have been like if they had done this in the beginning. Messy, Kendry concludes easily. Dutch would be just as sentimental as she is now, and Kendry would have played her for a fool.

She learns that Dutch is too touched by the smallest things, which confirms her conjecture. What Kendry calls merely conversing with low chance of betrayal, Dutch calls “confiding.” She can see it, she supposes. She wouldn’t speak of her worries about Jaq, whether she’s doing right by him or not, with just anyone. Dutch treasures it, in her simultaneously walled-up and open-hearted way, and Kendry finds herself nurturing it. Understanding it more deeply, when Dutch in turn opens up to her about things she’d never so much as think in her direction, before. Her childhood, the little joys and the plenty scars. The dreams she used to have. Her D’avin problems, even. Kendry listens and memorizes it all.

Trust. Such a new word between the two of them.

Sometimes, Dutch will kiss her and mean it. Sometimes Kendry will, too.

*

The next time, they linger near each other, with Kendry tracing lazy lines across Dutch’s collarbones with her fingers. Dutch stares at her, terribly and decidedly un-immune to Kendry’s soft and sated post-coital face. The brilliant gratified buzz in Dutch’s veins take a vulnerable turn, a tide that’s been coming.

“What do you want from me, Kendry?” Dutch asks quietly. “Outside of all this?”

Kendry studies her, studies the words. “Your company. Nothing you haven’t given before.”

“That’s all?”

“I’m not going to ask you to marry me and bear me a child, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Dutch’s face is unreadable. Kendry runs a finger along her lower lip, where she had kissed all the lipstick off before they got to the door.

“What do _you_ want, Yala?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me?”

Dutch hesitates. “To myself? No.”

“Okay. Then?”

“Do you ever break our Aneela rule? Do you look at me and pretend I’m her?”

Kendry’s brow creases. “No.”

“Do you feel like you’re being unfaithful, then?”

She withdraws her hand and sits up on her knees, looking down at Dutch. Still naked, still warm, smelling of dried sweat and other things. Jarring against her hardening face.

“I didn’t bully my wife into letting me sleep with you, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

The anger beginning to simmer there makes Dutch look away, backing down immediately. Just over a year ago, she wouldn’t have; would have tried to press every button that hurt, instead.

“I’m not. I just…”

Her gaze bores into the ceiling as Kendry’s stays on her. Sometimes she _will_ think of Aneela, in the inevitable way when both of them share the same face. But she never pretends. She finds she has no desire to. They sound different, move different, even smell different. Disappointment, not unkind, seats itself quietly in Kendry’s mind. No, she won’t spell it out for her. Yala is a smart girl.

“I love Aneela,” Kendry says, softer. “What concern do you have about that?”

The question sends an uncomfortable flutter from Dutch’s chest down to her stomach, stirring her out of whatever haze. “Because I’m not her. I’m not 2.0 or adjacent or lite—”

“Of course you’re not.”

“And Aneela isn’t just Evil Gother Me, either—”

“Yalena,” Kendry interrupts, prickling. “What are you really trying to tell me?”

Dutch clenches her jaw. Stares at Kendry, who waits patiently. Dutch opens her mouth and for a moment she seems like she’ll answer, but then clears her throat, rearranges herself and puts on Kendry’s favorite flirty smile.

She sits up and leans over, placing a hand on Kendry’s upper thigh. “Maybe it’s time to stop talking, huh?”

Kendry moves her head away before Dutch’s lips can make contact. “No,” she says. “We’re done here.”

“What?”

“You really aren’t hearing anything today, are you.”

Dutch doesn’t reply. Kendry takes the shower first, and when Dutch finishes hers, her clothes are neatly folded on the bed, Kendry already waiting on their ship for Qresh.

*

This time when Dutch leaves the cockpit to go box it out in the training room, Kendry does not follow her. She sits at the pilot seat with her feet up on the console, monitoring the scanners from the periphery of her vision as the ship flies on auto.

Dutch is hurt, and won’t say it. It comes to no surprise to either of them that she will not engage with it, not until she’s done bloodying her knuckles. At least she can recognize that if Kendry wanted to make it worse, she’d press all the buttons at her disposal, a collection that had only been growing since the day they met.

She checks her PDD, takes it off Do Not Disturb only to find a dozen missed calls from Jaq, a few from Aneela.

Her heart nearly lurches out of her body. “Dutch?” she bellows, hoping it reaches down the hall.

Then the ship rings. It’s from D’avin, and Kendry bristles only slightly—but presses accept. His face flashes onto the screen, cautious.

“Delle Seyah,” he says. “Where’s Dutch?”

“Training room. What’s happening?”

“Jaq had a vision and has been trying to reach you both. He said not to head to Qresh.”

Dutch enters the room, sweaty and with the downturn of the day’s events still knit into her posture. “Why?” she asks, even as she works the console to change course.

“Are Jaq and Aneela safe?” is Kendry’s question. “Talk faster, you’re not a news anchor, Killjoy.”

“They’re fine, but turn on your ship’s emergency safeguard, they—”

The feed cuts out. The ship rumbles violently and tips over to its side, power flicking on and off until it dies completely when they’re upright again. Kendry decides that this is the stupidest thing that could happen. What’s more, there is now a pitifully small army storming the ship from where they’ve broken into the cargo bay.

They act quick. Without much cognitive effort they load their weapons and holster back-up blasters, sheathing some knives for measure, and get to work when the doors slide open to an onslaught of fists and gunfire.

The first ass-kicking that started their whole Thing wasn’t the last. They’d sparred again, sometimes in the hotel room, sometimes on the way to, sometimes back. Mostly for the fun and seduction of it, but partially for this very reason. They’d have to fight side-by-side with coherency sometime, else another warrant incident occur.

Masked assailants, about six or seven in number, circle them. With quick ease Kendry absorbs their petty bullets into her abdomen, stretching her arm outward to catch one aimed at Dutch, and together disarm the weapons from their hands with their own, back to back, spotting for each other. Eventually Dutch ducks and rolls under one of them so that she and Kendry flank the remaining that are still conscious. Perhaps Kendry delights in the opportunity to murder once more, swapping out her guns to slit at some throats. And perhaps Dutch smirks, watching from the corner of her eyes while dodging swings and shooting into knee caps.

One remains. The console room is a mess. The ship will need some major TLC. The assailant coughs violently, blood streaking the floors, and Kendry picks him up by the neck and rams him into a wall. The impact clicks the clasp of the mask, letting it fall to the ground.

Kendry narrows her eyes. “You’re Brodias’ brother.”

He snarls, choking in her grasp. Then with a shaking hand, brings a dart pipe to his mouth, aiming at her. They stare at him, Kendry almost pitying him. Like it would do anything.

And then he turns it on Yala. It fires before Kendry can crush his windpipe, and Dutch’s sharp inhale across the room makes Kendry see red.

“Dutch!”

“Fuck,” Dutch gasps, removing the dart from her shoulder. Her blood goes thin, and Kendry catches her fall.

*

Ricin. So simple, so deadly.

Dutch feels a wave of nausea, and as steady as Kendry’s arms are, she still feel like she’s on a boat during a storm.

She carries her to the medbay, a sardonic comment about the tables turning under her breath, and sets her down carefully on the padded surgical table.

“Who doses this fucking high,” Dutch rasps, lungs weakening. “It’s just overkill.”

“It was meant for me,” Kendry murmurs, cutting open the fabric over Dutch’s shoulder and cleaning the residue that had splattered on her skin. No need to inhale this bullshit, too. “But he found something more effective.”

Kendry digs around the pockets of her bloodied dress for her PDD, a string of curses escaping her when she finds a bullet lodged in it. She lifts Dutch’s hip slightly to take hers out of her back pocket.

“Now’s not a good time to feel me up.”

“Shut up.”

D’av is already ringing for her. Kendry picks up, mouth to receiver so he doesn’t see the face she’s making.

“Find us right the fuck now. Bring a ricin antidote. I’m sending you coordinates.”

She clicks it off, waits only for a notification that D’av has linked up his tracker to the PDD, showing her in real time his location, and then sets it down on the table beside Dutch.

“How long?” Dutch asks.

“Soon enough,” Kendry says.

Dutch must look as bad as she feels, breathing rough and laborious. She tracks Kendry as she walks to the cabinets to take out some cushions.

“You and pillows.”

“Again. Shut up.”

Kendry tucks a thick cushion under Dutch’s head, and rolls Dutch to her side, her arms laid comfortably by her head and across her chest. She puts the second cushion between Dutch’s knees and checks that her back is straight. In a few moments, Dutch’s breathing is less ugly sounding. It won’t matter in time, but neither will mention that. Kendry pushes a chair next to the surgical table now a make-shift cot, and sits with a heavy sigh.

They’re silent for a few moments. Dutch stares at her ruefully. “I’m sorry for being a dipshit.”

“I’m touched,” Kendry says. “But you can be sorry later.”

The sadness remains on her face. Kendry takes one of her hands, begrudgingly allergic to Yala’s kicked-puppy eyes. She holds it close to her chest.

Dutch opens her mouth again, earning a glare from Kendry.

“No, I cannot just suck the poison out, it’s not snake venom.”

Dutch closes her mouth. Her smile is faint. Kendry mirrors it.

“I think,” Dutch begins, whispering at least. “I was angry. At myself.”

“For?”

“Liking you.”

Kendry hums. Her free hand brushes Dutch’s bangs out of her eyes and off her sweaty forehead. “You’ve always liked me.”

“Ha. Sure.”

“And I’ve always liked you.”

Dutch makes something of a scoff. “Please. I was your hobby.” She closes her eyes and feels Kendry rub the back of her hand with her thumb.

“Perhaps,” she replies. “But now you’re not.”

Dutch blinks her eyes open to look at Kendry, searching. “Yeah?”

Her face is soft. An echo of the devastation she had on when Jaq was born. The first true time Dutch had felt a pang for her.

“You don’t have to give something you don’t want to give for people to love you, Yalena.”

“Gross. You sound like D’avin.”

Kendry says nothing more, just holds Dutch’s hand with both of hers, still clutched close, calm in every way but on her brow. If only she hadn’t killed Brodias so carelessly, perhaps they wouldn’t be here.

“I’m surprised you haven’t suggested the green yet,” Dutch says when Kendry is too silent for her liking.

“No need. You’re going to live. Aneela wouldn’t stand for it, anyway. And she’ll never forgive me if you die on my watch, so, please, Dutch,” her voice hitches imperceptibly. “Shut up.”

She does as she’s told, finally, closing her eyes to fight the dizziness. Her mind drifts to Aneela. She was already glad that she had Kendry by her side, will have her for eternity, after centuries of isolation and madness. But now, she understands. Kendry is stingy and selective in every way. She has sole decision over who gets access to the reservoir of love she has in her calculating Qreshi bastard heart. And she chose Aneela, she chose Jaq.

And she chose Dutch, too.

The PDD beeps. Kendry places a kiss on her cheek after what feels like forever. “They’re here.”

*

She’s mostly unconscious through the whole ordeal, but can hear Kendry yelling creative insults and Qreshi expletives at D’av and Zeph as they inject the antidote into her arm, and carry her off into their ship. The thin and slow blood in her veins reacts to another presence; it’s how she knows Aneela is there, too.

Aneela and Kendry watch her, hooked up to an IV and resting, from the doorway of Zeph’s medical room.

“That was a close call,” Aneela whispers.

Her hand is still tightly folded around Kendry’s; she had not let go since she arrived. The smoky edges of her eyes are still smudged from crying. An emptiness had started to fester in her chest the moment Dutch was hit with the dart, though the recess is now slowly replenishing with every minute. The visceral feeling still had made a star-hot burn in her mind and body, though, and she’s not forgetting it any time soon.

“This was my fault,” Kendry whispers, the language of guilt feeling completely foreign in her mouth.

“It was not,” Aneela says definitively, calmly. Kendry doesn’t argue.

Then she turns to Aneela, brow knit. “This may be poor timing. But if you want me and Dutch to stop…”

Aneela’s eyes study her. “Do you want to stop?”

She hesitates, looks back at Dutch, the rise and fall of her breathing. “She’ll go gray in a blink of an eye for us.”

The recess opens back up in Aneela’s chest. She squeezes Kendry’s hand tighter. “That sadness will be for another day.”

They’re by Dutch’s side when she wakes up an hour or so later, strength returning. She folds at the undeterred love in Aneela’s eyes, and the fondness in Kendry’s. So she cracks a stupid joke.

“If Kendry’s asking for a threesome the answer has to be no,” Dutch says.

Aneela laughs. Kendry flicks her at face.

*

They give up the fancy off-Quad planets and hotels, and drop the “business meeting” pretense. Dutch’s tiny bed in her little ship will just have to do. It _should_ be offensive to Kendry to fuck Yala where she’s also had sex with D’avin, but then she remembers this is also where she’s semi-regularly invoked when he can’t perform as she does. Lucky for him that Dutch loves him for more than that.

Their kisses are charged with something extra—the constant reminder of Dutch’s mortality, perhaps, but also tenderness. Whatever Dutch had kept on low volume inside is now loud and clear, which Kendry is happy to give back. She’s got plenty where that came from, after all.

But as traditional as Delle Seyah loves to be, that’s not a word that can characterize how they are together, will be together, when they leave the room. Dutch won’t be held down, and Kendry has no need for it—her life with Aneela has already made it beautifully full. So what they give each other is enough. Orbiting but never landing. Floating and never anchoring, or at least not for too long. Privately and on separate occasions, they return to the conversation they had about doing anything like this before Aneela came into their lives. Someone would have crashed. Someone would have drowned. This was the right time. And now, unlike before, Dutch’s affections _do_ have an impact on Seyah Kendry’s questionable politics.

Kendry has a stupid look on her face that is both smug and content as she watches Dutch unlace Kendry’s dress, pull it over her head, remove the pins from her hair to let it cascade down bare shoulders. In turn, Kendry uses one of those pins to keep back Dutch’s unruly goth-kid fringe that she really needs to cut or commit to growing out.

Weaving her fingers into her hair, the flat of her hands meet the back of Dutch’s head, where she tugs at the curls as she kisses her, pressing herself into Dutch’s warm body. Dutch pulls her closer by the hip. Makes Kendry gasp when she kisses across her jaw and sucks on a spot behind her ear, running feather-light lines down her vertebrae with a hand.

Dutch leads her to the bed. Kendry makes some comment about getting her better sheets, and hells, a better bed, better ship. Her own little piece of land on Leith or Qresh, if she so desires. Dutch sits upright with Kendry straddling her, and she mumbles her polite decline into her neck, and also says pre-emptively that she’s never getting railed on Qreshi or Leithian soil, so don’t even ask. Her fingers between Kendry’s legs moves the topic along before any protest is made.

It’s entrancing to watch her, every time. The way some variant of smirk is always on Kendry’s face as she exhales a moan, a sigh, Dutch’s multiple names, or some string of filth. How it remains, until Dutch’s pace reaches a peak that has her trembling at the hips with an electricity that shoots up her spine to buck her head back, nails scraping behind Dutch’s neck, hot tears falling down blushing cheeks. Dutch kisses the wet way, letting out a low chuckle when Kendry grumbles. These are not sentimental, for the last time.

Kendry kisses her on the mouth a few times before falling onto her back and pulling Dutch down to let her ride her thigh until Kendry’s hand needs to give more precise stimulation. She fixates on every sensation, the feel of Dutch’s panting breaths on her skin, the shiver of her knees, the ends of her hair that brush along Kendry’s collarbone in her rhythmic movements. Catalogs every sound out of Dutch’s mouth—no two groans or whimpers or whines are ever the same. She could make a mental jukebox out of them. Dutch’s body rocks against Kendry until an orgasm makes her face go numb.

Yala has one last treat. Unseasoned lady lover my ass, Dutch had said before, the first time she made Kendry come some consecutive times in a row. Kendry snorts when Dutch sits back to tie up her hair —she’s taught her well. Teases and fondly mocks her all the way down until Dutch’s mouth scrambles all of Kendry’s language. She lifts Kendry’s hips upward so that her knees reach her ears, who laughs when Dutch says that she knows how much she likes to show off her flexibility. A better angle to watch her, too. She hooks her hands behind her own knees as Dutch cradles her hip and continues to draw out all of Kendry’s humming and groaning with her tongue.

It’s an increasing effort to keep her eyes open to watch the way Dutch drinks her up, the vibrations of her own contented hums bringing Kendry closer and closer. When the shake of her hip is accompanied with a high _oh_ , Dutch drops her down and slides in her fingers to curl against the spot she’s learned so much about over the past few months, and the action in tandem with the strong suck of Kendry’s clit results in an ecstatic bellow that D’avin would have had the misfortune of hearing in the cockpit were he here. Kendry hisses some unqueenly expletives.

Dutch wipes her mouth with a hand towel at the foot of the bed before coming back down to kiss Kendry, who is predictably obsessed with the way the musky scent and taste of herself lingers in Dutch’s mouth. When she pulls back, they share a soft and sated look.

“You still need a better bed,” Kendry breathes against her lips. “Your discs must be a mess. I have a list of chiropractors that don’t have a history of murdering clients. Also it’s incredibly stuffy in here. Get your vents looked at.”

Dutch sighs a smile. “At this point I should come clean. I only sleep with you to shut you up.”

Kendry hums, kisses her jaw. “I just want you taken care of.”

This isn’t sentimental. Sure. Dutch laughs.

“Okay,” she says, low. Then brings Kendry’s wrist and guides it down. “Then take care of me.”

So Kendry does.

**Author's Note:**

> Ricin is no fucking joke, lads.
> 
> thanks to strangesmallbard for bouncing ideas and letting me use easter eggs of her WIPS lmfao, and to kshaar for readthroughs!!
> 
> gonna yeet into the sun now. let me know how i did if you like!


End file.
